


Inherit the Earth

by irisbleufic



Category: Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Gen, Golden Age Hollywood
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-08-08
Updated: 2007-08-08
Packaged: 2018-01-02 07:28:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 840
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1054104
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/irisbleufic/pseuds/irisbleufic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's a long, long way to a perfect world, but little Jamie Shadwell will get there.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Inherit the Earth

**Author's Note:**

> Originally written and posted to LJ in August of 2007. All quotes from the 1937 film version of James Hilton's _Lost Horizon_.

Jamie is nine years old, and he's only been to the cinema once.  
  
It was five years ago, before his mum died.  
  
She dressed him up in his best breeches and his corduroy jacket with the patched elbows. Jamie always liked that jacket; it made him feel grown-up. He remembers that the theater was dark, and that there was a ghostly light all around as those strange, wonderful images danced black and white on the screen. It was an American film full of dancing and laughter built right in between the bits of music. On the way home, he remembers that he tried doing some of the dance steps for his mother. She laughed and applauded, called him Little Freddie. He didn't know why, but the name made him laugh, too, and they laughed all the way home.  
  
That night, he didn't sleep because of the welts on his back.  
  
"Nobody'll know," Thomas is saying. "All we gots to do is sneak in through that door."  
  
"Yeah," agrees Jamie, and leads the way, because Thomas isn't much for leading.  
  
The door leads them through a dark, dusty hallway to another set of doors that Jamie can barely see. "This is it," Thomas whispers. "The film's through there. You can feel it."  
  
Thomas is right, of course. The film is so close that it's booming through the walls, men's voices and sweeping music, and even a lady whose laughter reminds Jamie of his mother's. He pushes on the door.  
  
Nobody seems to notice as they slip up along the side aisle. Jamie tries to watch where he's going, but his head is fixed sideways, eyes glued to the screen. He's never seen such a beautiful landscape, or mountains so high, and the buildings look like what he imagines castles might look like in the jungle. There's a man talking on the screen, and he looks wise and good and powerful.  
  
Not like Jamie's dad.  
  
"We done it!" whispers Thomas, gleeful, tugging on Jamie's sleeve.  
  
"Shuttup, I'm tryin' t' watch!"  
  
They've stopped by now, both of them flattened against the wall, watching intently. Some of the ladies in ribboned hats and gentlemen in suits are looking at them from the aisle seats, some confused and some possibly mad, but they're not as interesting as the movie. The man on the screen is saying something, and Jamie wants to hear it.  
  
"It is the entire meaning and purpose of Shangri-La. It came to me in a vision, long, long ago. I saw all the nations strengthening, not in wisdom, but in the vulgar passions and the will to destroy. I saw the machine power multiplying, until a single weaponed man might match a whole army. I foresaw a time when man, exalting in the technique of murder, would rage so hotly over the world, that every book, every treasure, would be doomed to destruction..."  
  
"Sounds nasty," whispers Thomas, about to laugh again.  
  
"I said, shut yer _mouth_ ," snaps Jamie, and realizes he ought to keep his voice down.  
  
The next handful of minutes are a blur of confusion: angry voices, an alarm bell, ushers pouring in with flashlights. Panicked, Jamie thinks first that there must be a dozen of them, and second, that he needs to run, _fast_ , Thomas be buggered. He makes a dash in the direction they came from, hoping nobody has thought of that exit.  
  
Unfortunately, they have.  
  
"When that day comes," says the man on the screen, just as a pair of hands roughly seizes Jamie by the shoulders, "it is our hope that the brotherly love of Shangri-La will spread throughout the world."  
  
_Yeah_ , Jamie thinks, not daring say a word as he's hauled out of the theater and into the late afternoon sunlight. _In Shangri-La, I bet this stuff don't happen_.  
  
"When the strong have devoured each other, the Christian ethic may at last be fulfilled..."  
  
Jamie listens for as long as he can, for as long as the doors are still open, as he's tossed roughly onto the pavement.  
  
"...and the meek shall inherit the earth."  
  
"And _stay_ out, you little rag," says the usher in a thick accent that isn't any better, really, than Jamie's. "Just wait'll yer old man Shadwell hears, lad. Mark me."  
  
For long moments, all Jamie knows is panic and the stinging of his knees, the ache of his shoulders. So his dad's got spies all bloody over, or drinking mates anyway, and he's going to get a beating first for coming home skinned up and second for when that bastard rats on him at the pub. Thomas is nowhere in sight.  
  
Sniffing loudly, Jamie picks himself up, brushing the dust and bits of gravel off the worn knees of his trousers. He wipes his nose on his sleeve and makes the rudest gesture he can think of at those treacherous doors, then stalks off across the lot.  
  
_Someday_ , he thinks, _someday, it'll be like that ol' gent says_.  
  
He'll make sure that everybody's meek, and he'll be king of Shangri-La.


End file.
